Imaging in Oncology--SMi's Inaugural Conference. 17-18 March 2004, London, UK

This was the first SMi meeting on the subject of imaging in oncology trials, and attracted an enthusiastic audience of approximately 40 delegates from industry and academia, including speakers who are highly respected in their fields. The meeting covered the use of magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy, positron emission tomography, ultrasound, computed tomography, single photon emission computed tomography, gamma-camera and optical imaging in clinical oncology trials. While these modalities have been used clinically for decades, their use in oncology trials has not been recognized as potential measures of surrogate endpoints, biomarkers and pharmacodynamic endpoints. A number of key issues were discussed during the meeting, including the necessity to standardize, validate and evaluate these imaging techniques before they can be recognized and widely used. Also discussed at some length were the difficulties and problems associated with not following imaging protocols in multicenter trials, which can lead to unusable data and wasted time and resources.